


a manipulation of humanity

by Rosse



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, Oneshot, bitchy madara is bitchy, this is legitimately ancient
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-08
Updated: 2014-05-08
Packaged: 2018-01-24 00:46:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1585511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosse/pseuds/Rosse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>""He was a great profit, was he?"  Kakuzu doesn't bother to answer; Madara has every bounty memorised and he knows the answer."</p><p>Kakuzu, Madara and the promise of a new partner, all wrapped up in a wordy bow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a manipulation of humanity

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written ages ago. Like, as in I actually can't remember when I started this and the furthest back my Gdoc memory goes back is 2012 (and I hadn't written Naruto fic for a while at that point). My best guess is that it was before the fan translations of the third databook, because the flashback originally contradicted Kakuzu's backstory as given in it. So, enjoy really fucking ancient fic?

Madara understands the meaning of omnipotent. He is the All-Seeing. Pain can claim to be God and stand there, Rinnegan alight, able to see from all points with every body, but Madara does not need to be a crowd in order to see over all things. He merely makes it so with a brief inclination of his head and flash of red swirl.

And he knows what will be asked of him tonight.

Madara is not patient - he is not many things - but he expects Kakuzu to wait for him to speak when he appears at the inn, looking down at the corpse he knew would be there.

"You have killed again." His sight does not leave the body, lying there bloodied and heartless, but easily identifiable. "He was a great profit, was he?" Kakuzu doesn't bother to answer; Madara has every bounty memorised and he knows the answer.

Madara knows everything. He knows that Kakuzu will have his reason - that they were not strong enough - and he knows Kakuzu will not say it because Kakuzu knows Madara's thoughts as well as Madara knows everything. They have both lived too long, ran for too long. From their villages one after the other - Madara wanting (no, needing) more than Konoha would ever give him, leaving only two genin who bore his family name. Kakuzu, worn and ruined, dodging attacks and stealing hearts with a fury and hatred that impressed even the ever-watching Madara.

And outside the gates of Kusa was where Madara 'found' him, for the second time. _He knows the exact location and he tilts his head, looking at the man. (It has been years and you have not changed. I have seen it all.) "Good day, Kakuzu-kun." It is no different to any greeting Madara has given anyone and Kakuzu's face remains impassive as he takes a drink of his tea from behind his mask._

_"Uchiha Madara."_

_"Are you still searching?" Silence stretches and Madara sits down opposite his contemporary (unequal--), nodding as if it answers his question (it does). "I see." Painted nails brush Madara's fringe over his blinded eye and a cup of tea is brought to him without question._

_"Why are you here?" Kakuzu's voice is uncompromised business and annoyance as he drums his fingers on the tabletop. Reminders of a failure he does not want to remember should not just appear again so casually. Madara's gaze turns to Kakuzu's hand and with trained remembrance, Kakuzu withdraws the noise._

_"A break. A proposition."_

_"Then you've wasted your time."_

_"I have what you want." And it's as if Kakuzu has been struck by Mangekyou. He freezes, midway to leaving, and looks back at Madara. Madara moves with shinobi quickness to Kakuzu's side, murmuring the word- the desire he learned of Kakuzu with such ease that it was almost laughable. "Stability."_

_"I don't believe you."_

But Kakuzu followed eventually, submitted to Madara's will, found the stability, found his vice.

"You know it already." -Why do you continue to speak? And Madara hears the words Kakuzu won't say, because they are pointless and Kakuzu will not work without profit.

Madara does not need anyone. What he craves is power, control. He craves the ability to crush Konoha, to crush everything, into nothingness and rebuild. He needs to succeed.

"You continue to follow me. You do not wish to fulfil the plan, do you?"

"You kept your promise, I’ll keep mine."

"And yet you continue to destroy each of your partners."

"It wasn’t in our agreement that I had to keep them alive." And Kakuzu's tone spits even, sarcastic politeness to which Madara responds before the final word even touches Kakuzu's tongue, his hand in Kakuzu's hair, tightening and feeling pulsating blood underneath his touch, because Kakuzu at his core is nothing more than blood and flesh stitched into some manipulation of humanity.

And Kakuzu argues that Madara is nothing but the same.

"I do not need to tell you these things, Kakuzu-kun." His fingers loosen, brushing through and feeling the life that runs between them, endless and steadfast. Madara knows that Kakuzu will last for as long as his hate does.

It is not logical to be otherwise. (Hatred spins everyone, after all.)

Kakuzu does not move, or say a word, and Madara knows that he is relaxing under the continuous motion. But Kakuzu's guard will never drop, he will never appear so relaxed in front of someone like him.

Past, present and future. It shall be Madara's name for eternity.

And Madara knows this.

What he does not realise, does not know, even as the All-Seeing, is his hatred for Konoha twisting into a merciless vendetta under the eyes of his apprentice. He does not foresee Kakuzu ending before he achieves his goal.

"He shall be your last." And Madara is looking to the future again, to see a third who basks in their timelessness. And Madara's hand is at the base of Kakuzu's neck, not moving.

"And you both-

\- shall last."


End file.
